Ex-MLA ponders Springhill’s fate

Former MLA Murray Scott is shown in 2010. Scott is questioning Springhill’s decision to dissolve as a town. (ERIC WYNNE / Stafff)

Springhill is celebrating 125 years as an incorporated town this year.

Former MLA Murray Scott wonders if more anniversaries shouldn’t be in store.

“Our main focus is to try to get facts and try to get them out to the community,” said Scott, who is spearheading a committee and a May 1 community meeting for that very purpose.

“The reason we decided to have this meeting is to find out from the community in general how they feel and whether, at this point, they want us to continue looking for information and facts for them, and maybe look at some other options that the community may think we have.”

The mayor and council, reporting that the town was drowning in $5.1 million of debt, along with an $800,000 overdraft, voted in March to dissolve the town and apply for absorption into the Municipality of Cumberland County.

“I talked to a lot of people and a lot of people fall on both sides of this issue,” Scott, a Springhill resident who represented the provincial riding of Cumberland South for the Progressive Conservatives from 1998 to 2010, said Monday.

“Some are for it and some against it. Many, many more haven’t made up their minds because they don’t have the facts to judge whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing for our community.”

Scott said other communities throughout the province that faced a similar situation were more upfront with residents.

“Canso is a good example. They had an opinion poll there, they had information shared, they had a couple of consultants do studies on it, and a plebiscite before they finally decided to do this. In all fairness, the people of … Springhill deserve at least that much.”

Scott, who has called for a plebiscite on township, says he can “fully appreciate” Springhill’s financial troubles.

“One of the main questions that we all continue to ask, that we can’t seem to get any answers to, is … what efforts were made to look at other issues, either sharing services, looking to other municipalities for help or to the provincial government? …

“I don’t know if there has been any type of meetings with the managers here to reduce the budgets by 15 or 20 per cent or whatever it would take to balance the budget here on an ongoing basis.”

Mayor Maxwell Snow said as of Monday afternoon that he had not been invited to the 7 p.m. community centre meeting, called by Scott’s committee.

“Not likely our council will appear,” said Snow, who countered that the transition committee headed by John Leefe will hold its own public meeting later in May to update citizens on the work of bringing Springhill into the Cumberland County fold by April 2014.

Snow said that the questions about efforts to find alternatives to dissolution will also be addressed at the transition committee’s public meeting.

Scott said it’s clear that the province won’t absorb Springhill’s debt as it did with Canso.

“The other thing is that I spoke to a councillor in Canso who said they were told they would have reduced property taxes and that has not been the case.

“So, we could lose the incorporated town, we could end up still having the debt, lose control of our services and not have a thing off our taxes, which to me doesn’t make a lot of sense. But again, provide us with the information, let the community see all the facts and figures and let the people decide themselves if it is the right thing.”